


Chicken Hugs and Blueberry Cobbler

by RembrandtsWife



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Baking, Blueberries, Chickens, Grandmothers, M/M, Reminiscing, old people's stories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-09 00:26:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11657805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RembrandtsWife/pseuds/RembrandtsWife
Summary: Whatever Jack had been expecting when he met Bitty's Moomaw, it wasn't this.





	Chicken Hugs and Blueberry Cobbler

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank Ngozi Ukazu for creating Check, Please! I'd like to thank all the chickenkeepers who blog about their experiences for inspiration for my opening scene. I'd like to thank my ex-husband's grandfather for Moomaw's chicken story. And I'd like to thank Dizzy Redhead for the initial prompt of "blueberries" and for beta.

Jack hadn't known what to expect, meeting Bitty's Moomaw. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn't this: A tiny farm, basically, complete with chickens strutting in the front yard of a small house with a porch. He hadn't been expecting Bittle to stoop right down in the dry red dirt and open his arms to a large, fluffy, speckled chicken that trotted up to him, making soft noises more like a dove than a chicken, and laid its head on his shoulder.

"Aw, Betsy-boo," Bittle cooed, stroking the chicken's black-and-white fluff. "How's my girl? You haven't forgotten me!"

Another, larger chicken--a rooster, actually, with an impressive comb and glossy black wings and tail against a red body--strutted over with a strident call that made Jack almost jump out of his trainers. Bitty, still hugging the hen, simply pushed at the rooster with one hand.

"Oh, go away, Rodney, she still loves you, she just hasn't seen me in a while." After a moment Bittle straightened up, dusted himself off, and took hold of his suitcase, with a slightly abashed look at Jack over his shoulder. "Come on," he said, and the door of the house opened.

"Dicky? Dicky-bird, is that you?"

The woman who came out onto the porch and hurried into Bittle's arms seemed not much bigger than the chicken. Bittle's mom was a bit shorter than he was; Moomaw couldn't be more than a meter and a half tall. All he could see of her past Bittle’s shoulder was a glimpse of white hair and small hands curled against Bitty's back.

He shifted from foot to foot as the two of them hugged. Then the tiny woman looked at him, hands on hips, in an all too familiar way and said, "Well, Mr. Zimmermann? You gonna stand there in the hot sun all day?"

Smiling, Jack advanced onto the porch, dragging Bittle's suitcases along with his own. "No, ma'am," he said, taking off his hat. Bittle's Moomaw looked up at him from somewhere around the bottom of his sternum.

"Well aren't you a long drink of water? How does Dicky even reach those lips of yours?" She chuckled as both Jack and Bitty came over blushing. "Come inside, boys, I've got lemonade."

She led them through a small, dim living room with dark curtains drawn against the afternoon sun and into a sunny kitchen with ruffled curtains and a plate of goodies on the table. Jack recognized the coconut bars--Bittle made them, of course, from the same recipe--and restrained himself from grabbing one. The kitchen was scrupulously clean and obviously the domain of a serious baker. Jack didn't see a microwave, but there was a stand mixer like the one he'd bought for Bitty to use at the Providence apartment. A tall oscillating fan moved the warm, humid air. Jack hoped there was air conditioning in the bedroom. Or rooms.

"Just sit down a minute, now, cool off and have a coconut bar." She bustled around at the refrigerator and put a pitcher of homemade lemonade on the table, along with two small plates and three glasses. The sheen of condensation that instantly formed on the pitcher made Jack realize how thirsty he was.

"You just help yourselves to refills." She pushed a glass of lemonade toward Jack, then Bitty. "Sit down, sit down."

Jack sat down on the rickety chair at the small table, with Bitty on his right and Moomaw across from him, and took a drink of lemonade. It was the best thing he had ever tasted: cold, sweet but not too sweet, the lemon tasting like the essence of all the Georgia sunshine, filling his whole body with that light.

"Have something to eat, Jack." Bitty nudged his hand. "You look a little pale."

Jack drank three glasses of lemonade (Moomaw had a second pitcher in waiting) and ate most of the coconut bars (they were even better than Bitty's, if that was possible) while the little old lady with her thin permed white hair and small, broad, brown-spotted hands put them through a thorough interrogation. About three-quarters of it was directed at Bitty, about his grades, his baking, his videos, his friends, his plans, but Jack came in for his share. "I don't watch no sports, except when Dicky used to skate I would go and see him, but I want to know how you're doing. Are you doing good as a hockey player? Y'all make a lot of money, doncha? You happy with the team you're playing for? Do they know about you and Dicky? Do they like him? Of course he did. Not many people can resist a good pie."

Finally, when Jack had reached the point where he was trying to stifle a burp and keep his eyes open at the same time, Bitty laid a hand on his arm. "If y'all want to take a nap," Moomaw was saying, "I put the air conditioner on in the bedroom. Why don't y'all take a load off before supper?"

Dragging his feet up the stairs, Jack wondered vaguely where he was gonna put dinner; he was stuffed with coconut bars. He followed Bitty into a blessedly cool bedroom with a single bed and a vase of fresh flowers that scented the whole space. One bed?

"We're sleeping together? Moomaw doesn't mind?"

Bitty was already unpacking and putting his underwear in the dresser. "I think as long as we don't… talk about it, we're okay? She knows you're my boyfriend, not just a friend, and she won't mind if I give you a peck on the cheek or a hug. Just…." He waved a hand. "Some things oughta stay behind closed doors. Mind you, she'd feel pretty much the same way if one of us was a girl."

"Understood." Jack realized he was lying on the bed while Bitty unpacked all their bags. He really ought to get up and help, but… the heat and the lemonade and the coconut bars….

When Jack woke up, his feet were bare, and Bittle was snoring lightly next to him, stripped down to his briefs. Bittle must have taken off his shoes and socks for him. He got up without waking Bitty and found the bathroom down the hall; back in the bedroom, he shucked off his jeans and crawled back into bed, curling up beside Bitty and pressing a kiss to one freckled shoulder before drifting back to sleep.

Dinner that night was chicken and dumplings and an incredible peach pie. Jack had never thought he would taste a pie better than Bitty's, but it was obvious that Moomaw was where Bitty got his gift for baking, and he was still trying to live up to his potential. Jack ate three slices of the pie and drank glass after glass of milk while Bitty and his grandmother discussed the fine points of peach pie and related confections. Thank god his nutritionist wasn't here to see this.

Breakfast found Jack eating like a pig again, with massive amounts of eggs, bacons, biscuits, orange juice, and bitter but weirdly satisfying coffee. Bittle had slipped out of bed early to help his grandmother in the kitchen; Jack had thought about running, then turned over and slept another hour. But he successfully insisted on doing the dishes (there wasn't a dishwasher), with Bitty at his elbow to dry them. Moomaw had a last cup of coffee that was about half milk and sugar and told stories Jack wished he could record and share with Professor Atley back at Samwell.

"Oh, this isn't a farm, really. This is just a little plot of dirt. I grew up on a farm, horses, cows, everything. My daddy plowed with horses when I was a little bit, only switched to a tractor when I was about nine or ten. My sisters and I fed the chickens, and milked the nanny goat, and helped Ma hang up the wash. You ever had goat's milk, son? That's good stuff, better'n cow's milk if you ask me.

"We had to help hang up the wash, but Ma wouldn't let us near the wringer. Oh, that thing was the devil! It'd wring your fingers right off, and cranking that bad boy was hard work. Don't laugh, now, but one time Ma wasn't looking and got her bosom pinched in the gears. Oh, how she screamed! Daddy laughed like a loon while he helped her get loose, and then, I swear, she slapped him silly, she was so mad. She had terrible bruises for weeks, nobody could get near her, even give her a hug. Guess Daddy went without touching her longer than that.

"I have to have chickens, though. Can't imagine not having chickens. Chickens're good company. When I was a girl, we kept 'em for eggs and meat, too. I've still got a coupla pillows stuffed with feathers from chickens we ate back then. Oh, that makes the city boy turn green! I wouldn't eat these babies, though. Last night's dinner came from the market, I'd no more eat Betsy and Rodney than I'd eat my dog!"

They were almost finished the dishes. The old woman was looking out the window with a smile on her face, maybe seeing the farm she lived on as a child. Bitty, blotting off the big cast-iron skillet, said with a smile, "Moomaw, tell that story about gappin’ the chickens."

The old woman laughed. "Oh, you mean the one that made your daddy almost puke that one Thanksgiving?" The two of them giggled in remarkably similar tones. Jack, having rinsed and dried his somewhat wrinkly hands, helped himself to another glass of juice and sat down at the table.

"Well," Moomaw said, folding her gnarled hands, "sometimes chickens'll eat more'n is good for them. They eat anything, really, not just their feed but bugs, even a mouse or a frog if they come across one and it don't move fast enough. And sometimes they gobble up something too big and it sticks in their craw." Jack realized he had never heard the expression "stuck in the craw" used literally before. "So what my daddy taught us to do was grab a horse hair off the fence--there was always a few hairs off their manes or tails stuck to the fence, you know--and tie it into a little loop." Her bent fingers made a gesture of twisting and knotting this stray hair, thin but coarse, into a noose. "Then you catch the chicken, get it under one arm, say, and if you pinch it the right way at both sides of its beak--" again she mimed holding a fat, fluffy bird under her arm and gripping its head just so-- "then it'll open up, and you can drop the horse hair down its gullet and--" she jerked at an invisible string with her other hand-- "pull that thing free so the chicken don't choke."

Jack couldn't help it: He laughed. He was supposed to laugh, of course, but he laughed so hard, he had to put his head down on the table. Bitty got up and pounded him on the back. "I don't believe you," he said finally. "I think you made that up."

Instead of being offended, Moomaw laughed even louder than he had. "Oh, it's true, city boy! Every word of it is true! My daddy used to do that all the time! Go on with you!" She swatted him on the shoulder, more strongly than he'd expected. He sat up and grinned at her, and she grinned back.

"Now I've got a project for you boys." Moomaw got up, went to a cupboard, and began searching around in it. "I want you to go out to the blueberry patch and pick me some blueberries, and I'll make y'all a cobbler tonight."

The blueberries weren't exactly blue. At least, Jack had pictured them as a dark blue, like the blueberry filling of Bitty's pie. The berries clustered on the low bushes, the ones Bittle pointed to as ripe, were a purplish-blue that seemed to be dusted with white, though nothing white clung to his fingers. They stained his fingertips blue or red if he pulled too hard. It took him a little while to get the hang of it, not too gently, not too rough. A bit like sex, he thought, and smiled.

Bees buzzed, hovering around the bushes but never quite in the way. The sun rose higher, drenching everything in that golden light that Bitty seemed to carry with him, even in New England. A little bit of breeze stirred the bushes and the nearby trees. Bitty had tied a bandana around his forehead, and Jack soon wished he had one, too; the sweat gathered around his hairline even though they weren't really doing anything strenuous. 

Bitty didn't seem inclined to chat, for a change, and Jack was okay with his silence. It was a comfortable, meditative, togetherness sort of silence. Eventually, however, he felt he wanted to break it. "Your Moomaw is incredible."

Bitty's hands paused for a second in their quest among the leaves. "How do you mean?"

Jack took a long breath, searching for the right words. "I don't really know my grandparents, because my parents moved around so much. I've never lived in one place for very long; even after we bought the house in Montreal, I moved around a lot." He thought some more, searching the bush in front of him with careful fingers. "Moomaw has lived in the same place, pretty much, all her life. She grows some of her own food, still. She eats eggs from her own chickens. She learned how to bake from her mother, I guess, and passed it on to your mom and then directly to you. Because you have her, you have all that. That history. That continuity. Roots." He looked into the square wicker basket in his hands, nearly full of fresh blueberries. "And she's funny as hell."

Bitty laughed, more than Jack thought was called for. "Oh lord, she is! She can make you spit your drink, sometimes, I swear! And she really did make Coach turn green one time at Thanksgiving when she told that story about gapping the chicken."

"You should record that," Jack said. "I'm serious. I bet you could do a great project, recording and transcribing her stories, maybe interviewing other folks her age? I'd do it if I had the time."

He looked over at Bitty, who was gaping at him, his mouth stained with blue. "Jack, that's a wonderful idea. Atley's gonna love that idea!" Bitty popped up and gave him a kiss. "But haven't you been eating any berries? Lord, that's half the fun."

Bitty scooped a berry out of his own basket and offered it to Jack. How much his small, square, deft hand, browned with sun, stained blue with juice, resembled his grandmother's. Jack took the berry from Bitty's fingertips, drew it into his mouth, chewed, slowly, tasting sweetness, the sunlight overhead and the particular earth beneath his feet, the tang of his lover's skin, everything he wanted in this life.

Bitty was there, right there, for the kiss he offered. He clutched Jack's arms with strong sticky fingers and let Jack taste in his mouth everything the berries had offered, sweetness, place, roots, home. But when the earth pulled Jack to his knees, Bitty giggled nervously and said, "No, not here, Jack, not--" so Jack got up and grabbed Bitty by the hand and pulled him into the trees, further away from the house, the earth softer under his knees as he kissed his way down Bitty's body, tasting freckled golden skin, tasting sunshine, until he got Bitty's cock in his mouth and worshipped it, tasting roots, tasting earth.

Afterward he kind of fell backward on the soil, wiping his mouth and the wiping his hand on the sparse grass. Bittle fell on him, sticky mouth, sticky hands, sticky cock, dove into Jack's shorts, and jerked him off, Jack rolling to his side at the end to let his come spurt out onto the earth.

When they eventually got back to the house, not forgetting the blueberries, with the chickens trailing in their wake and making hopeful noises, Moomaw was in the kitchen, already starting dinner. She looked at them, stained blue and green, hair rumpled, dirt on Jack's bare knees, and her eyes twinkled. "I reckon this cobbler's gonna taste pretty good," was all she said.

Jack looked at Bitty and grinned, reaching for his hand. "I reckon so."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [RembrandtsWife](rembrandtswife.tumblr.com) on Tumblr, too, and I like chickens and other birds.


End file.
